1894—1914年俄国酒销售垄断的初衷及效果

俄国一直面临着既要保证税收又要减少酗酒的艰巨任务。俄国预算中酒税收入举足轻重;而俄国人酗酒成风,成为严重的社会问题。俄国为了保证稳定的酒税收入,交替运用国家垄断、包税制和消费税形式,其中酒垄断因简单易行和效果明显而历时最长。政府热衷于酒税收入的同时,也助长了酗酒。1894年财政大臣维特实施的酒销售垄断,名为解决酗酒问题和恢复良好民风,实为增加国家岁入。税收目标和社会目标实难两全,这是认识和评价此次酒销售垄断的关键所在;而数百年来俄罗斯人沿袭下来的饮酒习俗则是滋生酗酒的土壤,解决酗酒问题绝非一朝一夕之事。     

Direct Taxation and State–Society Relations in Lagos,Nigeria

Existing research suggests that external sources of finance, such as foreign aid and natural resource rents, allow states to generate revenue independently of their societies, disincentivizing them from forming close links with their citizens and severely problematizing the notion of a social contract. In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, a series of personal income tax reforms have seen an increase in taxpayer compliance. Considering Lagosians’ perceptions of their relation with the state government, this study examines whether the state had to ‘earn’ its revenue by developing a closer relationship with its citizens, and whether citizens responded through a greater willingness to pay tax. It explores how citizens understand this relationship, what role they perceive themselves to fulfil, and what their expectations are for the future of state–society relations. The study shows how, through efforts to visibly link tax to service delivery, a social contract is emerging between Lagos State and its citizens — but that this relationship differs among groups, in that it is shaped by pre‐existing concepts of public organization and modes of political engagement.     

INFLATION, PROGRESSIVITY, AND STATE INCOME TAX REVENUES

The combination of progressive income tax structures and inflation has led to significant increases in state income tax revenues. While the federal government has de facto indexed the federal personal income tax, states have generated large relative and absolute increases in their income tax revenues. This paper shows that the ratio of income tax revenues to personal income has grown significantly more in states with progressive income tax structures than those with proportional tax structures. Almost half of such increases may be attributed to inflation. The increase in the relative share of income tax as a source of state revenues has recently run into resistance in some states which have installed income tax indexation measures. This may suggest that the marginal cost of raising revenue through inflation, relative to other means (taxes), is reaching its limits.     

STATE REVENUE ELASTICITY AND EXPENDITURE GROWTH

Recent analyses and theories of public choice suggest faster public sector expansion in states with highly elastic revenue structures. This paper estimates the contribution of elasticity of tax revenues to the growth of expenditures in the 50 American states since 1960, based on elasticity measures for state revenue sources compiled by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, an index of state tax structural change, and controls for federal aid to states, population increase, and per capita growth in real income. Results for 1960-1970 show a small positive relationship between revenue elasticity and expenditure growth, but this becomes weak and negative for 1970-1976. Spending has increased most in states with the least elastic revenue sources; these states have made considerable changes in tax laws, while states with elastic revenue sources have been more likely to cut taxes than to increase spending. Federal aid, rather than tax elasticity, is the best predictor of state expenditure growth, while legislative changes in tax structure have enabled states to keep pace with rising demand for revenue due to growth in population and real income.     

The Disappearing State and the Quasi‐Event of Immigration Control

Immigration enforcement by sheriffs and police can be characterized as a proliferation of quasi‐events which never quite rise to the status of an event. This poses distinct challenges for feminist‐inspired scholarship on the state which seeks to document, ethnographically, how the state goes about its business on the ground. In this article we draw on our fieldwork experience in North Carolina and Georgia on sheriffs’ and police departments’ use of traffic enforcement and policing roadblocks to scrutinize drivers for their legal status, and ask how our ethnographic approach to the problem of state power inevitably stumbles in relation to the ordinariness of these practices. We conclude that feminist scholarship committed to an ethnography of the state could do much more to think through the potentially aporetic quality of that which is our common object of research—the state in practice.     

民国时期地方税收权力的流失——以1939—1949年重庆营业税为中心的考察

抗战全面爆发以后,重庆由四川省辖市升级为院辖市,逐步建立起独立的地方财政税收制度。作为地方税收的大宗,营业税本是重庆市政府增加财政收入的重要途径,但是,重庆市营业税权力却遭到四川省政府、中央政府、重庆市商人团体和参议会的分割、侵蚀而流失。以营业税为主的地方税收权力大量流失,直接导致地方财政困乏,也是影响国家政权稳定的重要因素之一。     

Financing Decentralized Development in a Low‐Income Country: Raising Revenue for Local Government in Uganda

Uganda has been engaged for a number of years in an ambitious programme of political and financial decentralization involving significantly expanded expenditure and service delivery responsibilities for local governments in what are now forty‐five districts. Fiscal decentralization has involved allocation of block grants from the centre to complement increased local tax revenue‐raising efforts by districts and municipalities. This article is concerned with the financial side of decentralization and in particular with an examination of district government efforts to raise revenue with the tax instruments which have been assigned to them. These are found to be deficient in a number of ways and their tax raising potential not to be commensurate with the responsibilities being devolved. Achievement of the decentralization aims laid down, therefore, must depend either on the identification of new or modified methods of raising revenue locally, or increased commitment to transfer of financial resources from the centre, or both.     

Local government reforms in Georgia and their impact on state-society relations

Abstract

This paper studies how the local governance reforms carried out between 1997–2014 shape state-society relations at Georgia’s local level. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, I analyze how the reforms shape practices and actors at the local level. Research interviews with state officials at the national and subnational levels and citizens of the Georgian district Marneuli highlight both government rationalities and how people react to them. I argue that the reforms, which have been declared to promote participation and accountability, hardly contribute to bridging the huge gap between state and society, particularly with respect to the case of the Azeri minority in Marneuli. Thus far, the newly introduced formal actors at the local level, the municipalities, lack power. Societal action in absence of the state and interaction with the state via informal networks remains dominant. The study contributes to literature on state-building and transformation in Georgia by shedding light on the often-neglected local level and to the debate on external democracy promotion and policy transfer by empirically studying the effect of a policy transfer.     

Decentralization,Local Taxation and Citizenship in Senegal

This article deals with the politics of revenue collection in a framework of decentralization, democratization and multiparty politics as experienced in the small village of Barkedji in the pastoral region of Senegal. In Senegal, revenue collection has recently been transferred from state administrators to locally elected councillors. Contrary to the assumption of the ‘good governance’ doctrine, this transfer of responsibility has not resulted in a strengthening of democratic structures where taxpayers demand (and gain) public services and more political representation in exchange for increasing taxes. In Barkedji, as elsewhere in Senegal, tax‐compliance hit rock‐bottom after tax collection became the responsibility of local councillors. Meanwhile other types of local institutions, with less clear state relations, are able to mobilize large amounts of revenue outside the normal tax channels for the provision of goods and service. These non‐state institutions seem to have taken over as providers of political representation as well as suppliers of public goods and of access or rights to crucial local resources. The article explores the motivation among first‐comers and newcomer populations to adopt or reject tax requirements to different types of organizations, and discusses the implications of this parallel tax collection for the exercise of public authority and the crafting of state and citizenry.     

释帛书易传《要》篇之“六府”、“五官”

帛书易传《要》篇所谓“六府”,当为“藏六物之税”之“六府”,所谓“五正”,当为“五官之长”。将“六府”解释为《淮南子·天文训》中所言“子午、丑未、寅申、卯酉、辰戌、巳亥六府”,“五正”解释成《鹖冠子》中的“神化”、“官治”、“教治”,“因治”,“事治”“五正”,皆与《要》篇之义不合,因而由这种解释推出的卦气说早在先秦已有的结论是难以成立的。     

How China Navigated the Dilemma of Trade Liberalization and Government Revenues

Many economists believe that in the long run, the aggregate performance of open economies is better than that of closed ones, and that open policies contribute significantly to economic development. At the same time, many political scientists and policy makers fear that, in the short run, one of the steps towards openness — trade liberalization — may harm government revenues. However, in the 1990s, China successfully navigated the dilemma of trade liberalization and government revenues. In this period, China decreased tariff and non‐tariff barriers for WTO accession, but has achieved dramatically increased tariff revenues since 1999. This study explores how China implemented trade liberalization and simultaneously increased tariff revenues in the 1990s. It demonstrates that a series of institutional arrangements, including a reform of Criminal Law, rigorous anti‐smuggling activities and a de facto tax imposed on the export sector, successfully curbed smuggling activities through the processing trade, and made foreign‐invested manufacturing enterprises the major contributors to the stability of customs revenue. China's case shows that a prosperous, export‐oriented and foreign‐invested manufacturing sector could potentially provide a developing country with a source of customs revenue.     

论民国时期的营业税税率与税负

营业税是民国时期从西方引进的一种现代税收制度,随国家政治与社会经济形势的变化而不断调整。作为税收制度的核心要素,民国时期营业税税率经历了从北洋政府时期的定额税率向南京政府时期的比例税率的转变。在南京国民政府的分税制体制下,地方营业税税率设计存在差别比例税率和单一比例税率两种模式。抗战和内战期间,国民政府逐步统一及大幅提高营业税税率以增加财政收入。营业税纳税人实际税负的增加是税率因素与非税率因素共同作用的结果。民国时期营业税在成为政府重要收入来源的同时,也给工商业经济和普通民众带来沉重的税收负担。     

A BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS OF A REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVE: STATE LOANS*

The luster of economic growth, the existence of depressed regions, and the fear of competition from giveaway programs in other states have all resulted in state governments adopting a rash of programs designed to encourage a strong manufacturing base for their economy. Many economists feel uneasy about the rapid spread of such industrial incentive programs as tax breaks, government loans, and industrial revenue bonds.¹ The literature of public finance, development, and regional economics contains many interesting studies examining the wisdom of these undertakings. This paper hopes to contribute by developing a method of benefit-cost analysis for appraisal of industrial incentive programs. Even though the model is constructed for and applied to the analysis of state government industrial development loans, the principles formulated should be easily adaptable to the assessment of other types of regional development programs. A secondary objective of the paper is to discuss the first empirical application of a model which accounts for possible differences between the social opportunity cost of foregone investment and that of foregone consumption.²     

Following the Money: Corruption,Conflict, and the Winners and Losers of Suburban Land Acquisition in China

Land acquisition in suburban China is not merely the administrative means through which land is transferred from collectively owned rural land to state‐owned urban land; it is also a process of unlawful profit grabbing by rent‐seeking stakeholders. This licentiousness has been the source of intense controversy in recent years, becoming a major source of social unrest in contemporary China. Although standards of compensation are legally governed by strict policies, these standards are rarely followed as prescribed. As a result, we know very little about how revenue from land acquisition is shared in practice. This is because, as a contentious political issue rife with corrupt practices, accurate data are extremely difficult to obtain. This paper aims to address this vast empirical gap by tracing the flow of profit proliferation and distribution in a land acquisition case, using a suburban village in Shandong province, China, as an example. To expedite the drawn‐out acquisition process, the local government permits the corrupt behaviour of the village party secretary, who exploits his position to amass a great personal fortune. In contrast to previous research, which emphasises low compensation standards or excessive profit grabbing by local government, we find that villagers' protests are triggered by the corrupt practices of the village party secretary.     

“Keep withstanding”: Territory in the body,home and market in Xinjiang,China

Geographic literature has explored how territorialization occurs by multiple actors in material and symbolic spaces, especially in the home and body. Building on the important research in feminist geography concerning the body as territory, important questions remain: How do Uyghurs in China respond to state territory in their everyday lives? How does fear, pleasure, and mistrust constitute the social relations of territory? How do people experience and navigate state dispossession of territory? I use long-term ethnographic fieldwork to study these questions. China is a strong, authoritarian state with a monopoly on power and seemingly unlimited surveillance and policing capabilities. Uyghurs explored survival strategies that constituted social relations of territory as a node in overlapping networks in Xinjiang. My main argument is that despite a strong government presence, embodied Indigenous practices enabled survivance for the Uyghur people. People escaped the stress of government surveillance and policing by turning to material and symbolic modes of constituting embodied territory.     

近代日本地税改革中的土地等级制度

土地等级制度是维新政府为加快地税改革的进度,保证地税收入而施行的措施。该制度经过地方府县的试行后,被政府采纳并规范化,形成了完善的土地等级编制规则,最终成为政府向农民摊派地税的手段。本文将主要讨论政府的土地等级制度政策与县厅的执行情况,论述土地等级制度的产生、发展与变形以及编制土地等级对地税改革及当时的社会所带来的影响。     

北魏均田制下产权制度变迁分析

结合新制度经济学的有关理论,对我国历史上的均田制进行分析是很有意义的。作为国家强制性的制度变迁形式,均田制依靠国家的力量得以推行,为国家建立税收基础,以实现国家租金收入的最大化。但是,在均田制实施的过程中,却遭遇到了来自下层的变通与退出力量,使得均田制度的演进过程又呈现出既定利益结构下的诱致性变迁。     

Two-dimensional fiscal competition

This paper analyses commodity tax competition between two neighboringcountries whose governments are tax-revenue maximizers in atwo-dimensional market. The results suggest three conclusionsin a geographical sense. First, a small country sets a lowertax than does a big country, and per capita revenue of the smallcountry is larger than that of the big country. Second, thesetwo countries are subject to severer competitive pressure inthe case of a more curved national border. Finally, the impactof border curvature on tax and revenue differences are alwaysopposite in sign with the impact on tax and revenue ratios.     

The Principles of Parallel Development of Fiscal Capacity between State and Municipalities as Useful Benchmarks for the Determination of the Inter-governmental Grants in Germany

The conventional theoretical and empirical references related to the inter-governmental fiscal transfer system in Germany appear to heavily concentrate on the issues surrounding the measurement of local expenditure needs of a municipality and their coverage through the down-flow grants when the municipal tax revenue is insufficient to match the needs. This study introduces additional important research fields in this context. Firstly, it attempts to analyse the role of the development of tax revenue and fiscal power of the grant provider (the State) as well as the joint financial relationship between the State and (different types of rural and urban) municipalities in the determination of inter-governmental grants. Secondly, when the total volume of the State grants is determined, this study examines in the next step under the particular consideration of different tax capacities in varied categories of municipalities, how this amount should be horizontally distributed among these groups to achieve the equal growth of hypothetical per capita fiscal capacity.     

Norms,coercion and contracting in the struggle against ‘harmful’ tax competition

The world's richest and most powerful countries have become increasingly concerned about revenue lost to tax havens, and fear that tax competition might spark a fiscal ‘race to the bottom’, yet they have failed to pressure much smaller and weaker tax haven states into reform. This article argues that the OECD-sponsored campaign against ‘harmful’ tax competition has been unsuccessful because regulative norms have severely constrained the means legitimately able to be employed. Early decisions on how the campaign was designed subsequently brought norms into play which have not only ruled out the use of coercion, but also the use of side payments, despite the massive potential benefits available to both sides from a deal between tax havens and OECD states. The failure to strike a deal cannot be explained by high transaction costs nor by corporate lobbying in defence of tax shelters. Regulative norms can thus affect economic bargaining in the international arena by preventing mutually advantageous exchanges that are nevertheless regarded as inappropriate.